


Fault

by Lost_But_Not_Alone



Category: Original Work
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-13
Updated: 2017-07-13
Packaged: 2018-12-01 13:51:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11487699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lost_But_Not_Alone/pseuds/Lost_But_Not_Alone
Summary: Most people experience trauma at least once in our lives. And, usually, we blame ourselves. This is my journey as I work through all the traumas I've faced, as both an adult and a child, and try to place the fault where it really belongs.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is a true account of my life, with names and places being kept ambiguous for privacy sake. There will be triggering content throughout, so read at your own risk. I am choosing to keep this anonymous for personal reasons. I do NOT recommend engaging in self harm or any of the other destructive activities described here, I'm merely trying to sort through the mess in my head. If you are feeling suicidal thoughts, please reach out for help. You are not alone. http://www.crisistextline.org/textline/?gclid=Cj0KCQjwkZfLBRCzARIsAH3wMKpH9ltJ09r1nPC4qIukJyHmFT_zisCYqq9nMhCd7ugQnRKP20dmTiIaAuVDEALw_wcB

 

Where do we start this retelling, this poorly worded account of my life?  Should I start at the beginning and work my way up or start in reverse? Maybe I'll start with how it feels, walking around each day inside this sack of bones and blood and flesh. We'll start there, and see where it goes.

 

Sometimes I'll be laughing hysterically at  a joke made by a friend, but all the while I'm thinking "Stop laughing, you look like a freak and don't deserve this happiness. Plus, your laugh is obnoxious as hell." And then, even with a smile glued to my face like some sort of cheaply made theater mask, I think "I want to die. If I die, the pain will stop, and even though so many people will feel sad, god I just want the pain to stop."

 

My first suicide attempt  was when I was seven. I was young, and uninformed as to exactly how people actually die, so my attempt wasn't even close to successful. I remembering the air being cut off from my lungs for a brief second as my hands wrapped around my own throat. I failed to take into account that the moment I would lose consciousness, my hands would stop squeezing and the air would return. The doctors said it was nothing. They kept me for only a short time in the local mental ward. "She's too young to know what this means. Kids just do silly things sometimes". 

 

I'll never forget my first time there. I had a roommate, a few years older than myself. She taught me how to break the tongs off our plastic forks and hide the evidence in the mashed potatoes. Then we'd stick the broken piece in those hospital socks you're forced to wear. You know the kind, with the padded bottoms to stop people from slipping on the smooth floors. 

 

We'd take the broken pieces of our dinner forks back to our room, food left mostly untouched, and scratch tiny, red marks into our ankles. And that small bit of pain, tiny surface scratches that didn't leave permanent marks or even bleed, it held back the pain in my chest, if only a little. If only for a moment. She said if I cut deeper, it would help even more. The doctors said she was recovering well, and let her out a day before me.  

 

She wasn't doing well. I never saw her again, but the "well" was all an act so they would let her out for "good behaviour".  Good behaviour was the key to faking success, I later learned. 

 

Anyway, I'll never forget this girl. Or all she taught me. How to smile until no one's watching. How to lie to doctors so they'll let you leave. How to hurt yourself and leave no evidence behind. Or no evidence that clearly pointed to self harm. She taught me to bump into walls and punch my legs because bruises can be pressed whenever the depression gets too hard. Not like I didn't already have bruises, but there's something about causing them yourself that helps the sadness. Bruises that those around me caused? Those only made it worse.

 

This girl, this sad but clever girl, also the first person I expressed my curiosity toward the same sex with. We never did anything. But I remember that last night she was there. We were both lying in bed, after lights out, talking in hushed whispers. She said she was bi and had had sex with girls. I was curious and asked her questions, like how did it feel and what went where. Eventually, she asked me "You want a little some-some?" I was too embarrassed to answer, and quickly rolled over, ignoring her question and feigning sleep. 

 

And that's how I discovered that girls can like girls and that I, in fact, liked girls. That's how I discovered a lot of things, in just a short three night stay at the local mental hospital.  Maybe it wasn't the healthiest way to discover more about my sexuality, but then "healthy" and "sex" have never gone hand-in-hand for me.

 

Some habits start young, and damn if they aren't the hardest to break.


	2. Chapter 2

I guess, starting this project, I always knew I'd have to talk about my parents. Eventually. Best to rip the band-aide off right away, right?

I have parents. Nothing standard, of course. And nothing easy to explain. So, we'll start at the beginning. With my bio-mom and bio-dad. My mother was young, when she had me. Pregnant at seventeen. Neither of them were ready. And they didn't even have "at least we're in love" to hold it together. Dad wanted me to be aborted. I still don't know why my mother refused, all things considered.

Some days, I wish she had accepted.

We lived a few hours drive from him. I didn't get to see him often. I remember one year, we went to visit him for Christmas. I was so excited to see daddy during a holiday. I couldn't have been more than five? Maybe six? I remember the drive felt so long, and I fell asleep in the backseat. I woke up when mom's friends from the area got in the car. I remember listening to them chatter away as we went to Taco Bell. 

As I was eating, my mother broke the news: Daddy didn't want us to come. He'd changed his mind, yet again. I cried as I finished my taco, heartbroken that he'd cancelled another trip, and when we were so close. So close, and he wouldn't even see me for a minute. I hated Taco Bell for years after that, but it took me even longer to make the connection why.

He cancelled a lot of trips. But there was one time he didn't. He had this great big dog that I played with. Mom didn't come. She had already been married and divorced by that time. I was still under the age of eight. I remember him tickling me and how we laughed and played together. I got to spend a whole afternoon with him. Then he had to go to work and dropped me off at his mom's house. 

I didn't get to see him the rest of the trip. I stayed with his parents. She let me sleep in her grandkid's bed, and even let me sleep with one of her dolls. But when she said "this belongs to my granddaughter" it was as if she was saying "you're not my granddaughter" and it broke my heart. 

I kept pretty quiet the remainder of the trip. Dad said he was busy working, and that's why he couldn't see me. I tried to stay and be a good girl. I thought maybe if I was good enough, they'd love me. And maybe if his parents loved me, he would to.

That wasn't the last time I saw him, but sometimes I think it was our final goodbye in a lot of ways. Mom stopped trying to send me up there, but she called him with updates. Technically, in the eyes of the law, he wasn't my dad. It didn't matter that I carried his genes or had his eyes. He'd given up all rights to me when mom married her first husband.

The last time I saw him, I was barely conscious. But shit, that's another story all together, and we're not there yet. 

I've only talked about dad so far, right? Maybe I should talk about mom a little bit. I loved her. I wanted her to love me. I'm not sure she ever did. She faked it, sometimes, faked it so well that if I close my eyes real tight and make believe, it feels as if she might have.

Mom has always had a temper. Sometimes, she'd be angry with me. The reasons always varied. I cried too much, or wasn't popular enough. When I smiled for pictures, she'd get angry if I showed my teeth and make me do it over, close lipped, because a dog bite left me with an over bite. Sometimes, something would happen on her soap opera and she'd get angry and start shouting and throwing things. Or she'd talk to one of my dads and something would piss her off. The reason never matter, not really. She was only calm when she was high.

I'd hide in the corner while she screamed, her eyes wide and red. She'd throw whatever was nearest around the house. Those big chunky glass ashtrays or soda cans. Whatever was handy. _Smash thump slam_ it would go against the walls, her incoherent screaming echoing behind it.

One time she hit my step father in the face with a vacuum cleaner. His lip busted open, a trickle of blood down his chin. He stormed past my bedroom door where I stood, in my Jasmine pjs, heading for the bathroom. "Look what your mother did to me," he shouted as he passed by. As if it was somehow my fault. I was around eight or nine at the time. They were only just married not too terribly long ago. It was our second home together, as a "family". It was also my mother's second marriage. 

I learned to stay in my room for most of the day. I didn't have any friends, and wasn't allowed to leave the house anyway, so I'd sit in my room with my hidden stash of books and read. Sometimes I'd alternate between crying and reading, but that was how I spent my days: drowning myself in fictional worlds so I wouldn't hear my mother's anger through the thin walls of our shitty house. Those books probably saved me, back then. I guess that's why I wanted to be a writer. So that I could create a fictional world for some new child to lose themselves in, and be saved.

 


End file.
